hours-of-service-check

Driver Hours Compliance Check

Hours violations are almost never a driver deciding to break the rules. They are a run that could not be done legally, a dispatcher who did not check, or a detention delay nobody planned for. This audits the records for what an inspector would find, then goes after the scheduling that produced it — because retraining a driver on a schedule that remains impossible produces the same violation next month.

What This Skill Produces

• A violation summary — by type, severity, driver, and pattern, in the terms an inspector uses
• Falsification-pattern review — the signatures that draw scrutiny: unassigned driving, implausible edits, and off-duty time that does not match the vehicle's movement
• Edit-trail analysis — who changed what, when, and whether the annotations justify it
• Scheduling root-cause analysis — which runs are not legally achievable as planned
• Actions at both levels — driver-specific and systemic, kept separate
• The audit trail — what was reviewed, by whom, and what was done, which is what a review actually examines

Required Inputs

Ask for these if not provided:

• The records — ELD, tachograph, or log data for the period, with edit history
• The period and scope — how far back, which drivers, and what prompted the audit
• The schedules — planned runs, distances, and delivery windows for the same period
• Known disruptions — detention, breakdowns, weather, and traffic events
• Your regulatory framework — the specific rules, limits, and exemptions that apply where you operate

Framework: Find the Violations, Then Find the Schedule That Caused Them

1. Establish which rules actually apply. Limits, break requirements, and exemptions differ by jurisdiction, vehicle class, and operation type. Auditing against the wrong ruleset is worse than not auditing.
2. Run the mechanical checks first. Driving time, duty time, breaks, and rest periods against the limits. This is the list an inspector generates.
3. Then look for falsification signatures. Unassigned driving time, edits that convert driving to on-duty-not-driving, personal conveyance used implausibly, and off-duty periods during which the vehicle moved.
4. Read the edit trail. Who made each change, when, and whether the annotation explains it. Unexplained edits by a non-driver are the finding that escalates an audit.
5. Map violations to runs. If the same lane produces violations across different drivers, the lane is the problem.
6. Test whether the schedule is legally achievable. Distance, speed limits, mandatory breaks, and realistic loading and detention time. Many are not, and that is a management finding.
7. Separate the actions. Driver coaching where the driver chose; scheduling change where the run was impossible. Conflating them fixes neither.

Output Format

Hours compliance audit: [period] · [scope] · [auditor]

Ruleset applied: [jurisdiction, regulation, vehicle class, exemptions relied on] · Verified against: [source, date]

Violation summary

| Type | Count | Drivers affected | Severity | Trend vs last period |

|---|---|---|---|---|

| Driving time exceeded | | | | |

| Insufficient break | | | | |

| Insufficient daily rest | | | | |

| Duty time exceeded | | | | |

| Missing/incomplete record | | | | |

Falsification indicators

| Indicator | Instances | Drivers | Assessment |

|---|---|---|---|

| Unassigned driving time | | | |

| Edits reclassifying driving | | | |

| Implausible personal conveyance | | | |

| Vehicle movement during off-duty | | | |

Edit trail: [edits by non-drivers: count] · [unannotated edits: count] · [notable examples]

Root cause by run

| Run/lane | Violations | Legally achievable as scheduled? | Why not |

|---|---|---|---|

Actions

• Driver-level: [driver — issue — action — owner — due]
• Systemic: [scheduling/dispatch/detention change — owner — due]

Audit trail: period reviewed [dates] · records examined [n] · reviewed by [name] · date [when] · findings issued to [who]

> Hours-of-service rules, limits, break requirements, record-keeping duties and exemptions are set by regulation and differ substantially by jurisdiction and operation type. Verify every limit against the current applicable regulation before relying on any finding, and take specialist advice where enforcement action is possible.

Quality Checks

• [ ] The applicable ruleset is identified and verified, including exemptions
• [ ] Mechanical limit checks were run before pattern analysis
• [ ] Falsification indicators were reviewed, not just limit breaches
• [ ] The edit trail was examined for unexplained non-driver changes
• [ ] Violations were mapped to runs to expose lane-level causes
• [ ] Schedule achievability was tested against real driving and break time
• [ ] Driver-level and systemic actions are recorded separately

Anti-Patterns

• Auditing against the wrong ruleset. Everything downstream is invalid.
• Counting violations without patterns. Misses the falsification signals that escalate an audit.
• Ignoring unassigned driving time. One of the first things an inspector looks at.
• Coaching drivers on impossible schedules. The violation recurs because the cause was never touched.
• Editing logs to clear findings. Turns a compliance problem into a serious one.
• No audit trail. An audit you cannot evidence did not happen.
• Treating detention as unavoidable. It is a schedulable, negotiable cost driving real violations.

Example Trigger Phrases

• "Audit our driver logs for the last quarter"
• "We keep getting hours violations on the same lane — why?"
• "Prepare for an hours of service compliance review"
• "What falsification patterns should I look for in ELD data?"
• "Are our scheduled runs actually legal?"